I had the opportunity today to play with a dual xeon 2.6GHz server with 12GB of RAM and a 3Ware RAID controller. Now that’s a cool bit of gear. The only hitch was that I had to break into it physically to do so. I had to remove screws that were designed to be unremovable to get inside the system and then I had to reset the CMOS data without the benefit of a jumper. Of course, none of that is particularly hard since removing the battery will reset the CMOS data and there are plenty of tools to operate on damaged screws. It just took a bit of doing.
Of course, it’s much easier to operate on hardware that hasn’t been locked down for whatever reason, but where’s the fun in that?
Before anyone asks, there was nothing illegal about breaking in to this particular server. It was merely a prerequisite for installing a new operating system on it.